Adventures in France

Month: October 2013

Over a month ago, I got the change to visit Paris for the first time (seeing the airport when I flew in doesn’t count as visiting the city)! Paris is only a 45 minute train ride away, so it was super easy to go there for a day trip! I had a blast seeing the Notre Dame Cathedral, Louvre, l’Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, Eiffel Tower, and I got to take a boat tour along the Seine. It was a great day and I can’t wait to visit the city again soon! 🙂

The first weekend in October, I hopped on a train and headed off to London for a weekend! I met up with Anna when I got to the city and we took a double decker bus tour of the city so that we could see as much as we could in the short amount of time we had in the city. My favorite sites were the Buckingham Palace, and Big Ben! One of Anna’s brothers lives just outside of London so we meet up with him, his wife, and some family friends for dinner. The next day, we got to explore Milton Keynes! We stopped by a Starbucks for coffee in the morning–there isn’t a Starbucks in Reims, so I was very excited get a pumpkin spice latte. We also had time to visit an adorable little town and do some shopping before having to catch our train back to France. I had an amazing time in London and I can’t wait to visit again soon!

You can check out more photos from my trips on the new Photos page!

I have been super busy with school lately and am starting to apply for internships for next semester, so I haven’t been updating my blog regularly. But, I am going to try my best to start updating it once a week.

These past few weeks, I’ve gotten a lot of opportunities to explore Reims! Here’s what I’ve been up:

Two weekends ago (September 14 & 15), was the journées du patrimoine. All historical building, including some that aren’t normally open, were open to the public for free! The majority of these sites are in Paris, but there were a lot of things to see in Reims! Our first stop was the Cathedral (the Reims Notre Dame). We took a tour of the Cathedral that allowed us to climb up to the top! The views were amazing 🙂 Our next stop was the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall). The building is filled with gorgeous architecture with some modern touches. Finally, we toured the Opera House! First, we looked at the costumes that were on display from various Operas. The best part of the exhibit was that they had two instruments from the 1800’s and 1900’s on display! Next, we took a tour of the theater. We got to sit in the theater, walk on stage, and visit the orchestra pit! All in all, it was a fantastic day!

The view from the Cathedral

L’hôtel de ville The Opera House

On our way to explore a path along the canal, Anna, Dre, and I found an awesome park just a few blocks away from our apartments!

Friday the 20th of September was the International Student’s day at NEOMA (RMS). So, instead of having class, all of the international students traveled to a small town just outside the city. We were split up into groups with a mixture of students from both international programs and had a scavenger hunt around the town! The town is absolutely gorgeous! The other international program is a semester abroad for a master’s program in English. Since my program is in French and not every speaks English, we translated and played charades to communicate and had a blast getting to know each other.

This weekend, Anna and I decided to go to the movies. We decided to see Sur le chemin de l’ecole, but when we got to the theater, the movie wasn’t playing there. We realized that the movie was playing at another theater that was a part of the same chain. Oops. There were two other movies that hadn’t started yet at the theater–a horror movie, which was out because I hate horror movies, and 2 Guns. So we saw 2 Guns. It is an American film, but was dubbed over in French. The movie was a lot of fun, but I didn’t understand a lot of it. Whoops.

Reims has a week every year for student, Welcome Week. I went to my first Welcome Week event Sunday, a brunch, with some friends from school. I was really excited to eat crepes and croissants and pain au chocolat, but when we got there, we quickly realized that that wasn’t the case. There were just drinks and plates of little appetizers. But it was a (little bit of) free food, I got to meet some new people, and I got to see Palais du Tau–a gorgeous building right by the Cathedral–because that’s where the brunch was held.

After the brunch and some homework, I went to a soccer game at the Stade de Reims! Reims was playing Monaco which was a huge game. From what I understand, Reims is in the top division for soccer (football) 1. Monaco was recently bought by someone really wealthy and moved from division 2 to 1 because they also signed a bunch of great players.

We had really good seats! Were were towards the center in the first row of the top balcony. (And I finally got my student card this week, so I was able to start enjoying my student discards by getting a half-priced ticket).

The atmosphere is the stadium is energetic, awesome, and so much fun!

The game ended in a 1-1 tie (but we almost won–it was so close!)

It has been a great few weeks! I can’t believe that I have been in France for over a month now!